Men Supposedly Time Their Vasectomies for March Madness

If this sounds like an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond to you, you're not alone.

You may have assumed things couldn't get worse for humanity, but now CNN is reporting that men schedule their vasectomies to coincide with March Madness, so clearly rock bottom is still on the horizon.

Meet Mark LaSalle, a 40-year-old father of two who, instead of worrying about parenting his children, worried about which vasectomy date would get him off the hook from household responsibilities in time to make the most out of March Madness. "If you are going to be laid up on the couch for a few days, you might as well get (a vasectomy) done when there is some great college basketball on TV. You had all the conference championship games over the weekend and the NCAA tourney starts this week." Thank god he'll be too tied-up with recovery to have his beloved sports-viewing interrupted by his family. Mark LaSalle has his priorities in order.

Dr. Philip Werthman, who performed LaSalle's vasectomy, says that he sees no spike in the amount of procedures during March Madness, but he does notice that those spots are highly coveted and become booked-up much earlier in the year. Other urologists claim they do see up to 50 percent more procedures in March. Dr Ed Sabanegh, chairman of the Department of Urology at the Cleveland Clinic, says patients are very up-front about their motivations.

"A lot of patients come in and say, 'I have to have this during March Madness, you have to talk to my wife about it. Tell her what my limitations are and that I need to be on the couch.' They'll even tell us to exaggerate a little about how long it takes to recover."

If this sounds like an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond to you, you're not alone. The American Urological Association has absolutely zero data backing up the correlation. But that doesn't mean that clinics aren't cashing in on the potential correlation. The Urology Associates of Cape Cod even placed an ad during last season's NCAA tournament, in which an announcer asked, "Want to watch college basketball guilt-free? Camp out on the couch for uninterrupted basketball." Because that's why men should get vasectomies — so their wives won't give them a hard time for watching sports. And so they won't father any other pesky children who will cry over the sound of their precious ESPN.

Don't get me wrong, if college basketball is your thing than go forth and watch college basketball. But scheduling a procedure to coincide with March Madness, thus rendering you exempt from all other responsibilities during that time is, well, crazy. You don't see me running out to get a tonsil removed every time TLC marathons Say Yes to the Dress so that my boyfriend can't interrupt my viewing by asking me wash the dishes or even — dare I say it — pay attention to him. If women were doing this, there'd be an uproar. Radical right wing politicians would be clamoring to get a spot on Fox News, yelling about the decline of the nuclear family. Men, however, are expected to sit on the couch with a beer all weekend while their wives nag them to take out the trash, so this is pretty much status quo.

Men — if you want to get a vasectomy, do not schedule it simply to allow for uninterrupted viewings of March Madness. And if you want to watch March Madness, do so, but remember to take bathroom breaks.